Who We Are
Staff
Cecilia Garcia, Executive Director
Kevin Taglang, Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Karen Menichelli, Program Liaison, New Routes to Community Health
Brenda González, Deputy Director, New Routes to Community Health
Kip Roderick, Executive Assistant to Charles Benton
Jeremy Isett, Web Developer
Board of Directors
Charles Benton, Chairman, CEO and Trustee
Adrianne Benton Furniss, Board Secretary and Trustee
Michael Smith, Treasurer
Elizabeth Daley
Terry Goddard
Lee Lynch
Henry Rivera, Board member and General Counsel
Leonard Schrager, Trustee
Woodward Wickham
Craig Benton
Robert Furniss
Cecilia Garcia, Executive Director
Cecilia Garcia first joined the Benton Foundation in 1997. She most recently served as executive director of Connect for Kids. Her broad range of experience includes work as a press secretary for a Member of the U.S House of Representatives. As communications director for a national Latino nonprofit organization, she worked to create greater avenues of access for the Latino community into the political process through leadership development programs, legislative conferences, a seven-site electronic town meeting and the creation of the organization's web site. Cecilia coordinated state outreach activities, developed teacher training models for classroom use, and worked on the CD-ROM version of "Chicano: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement," a four-part PBS documentary produced by the National Latino Communication Center. She began her extensive career in communications producing and directing public and community affairs programming at WTVS, Detroit's public television station. Cecilia earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wayne State University in 1988.
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Kevin Taglang, Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Kevin Taglang is an independent communications policy researcher and writer based in Evanston, Illinois. Previously, Kevin was a senior policy analyst at the Benton Foundation, working on policy and strategies for educating and engaging the nonprofit sector. During 1997 and 1998, Kevin staffed Chairman of the Board Charles Benton's participation on the President's Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. Kevin has over ten years of experience in the field, monitoring, analyzing and writing on telecommunications legislation, regulation, and policy.
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Karen Menichelli, Program Liaison, New Routes to Community Health
On staff since 1982, Karen Menichelli served for many years as executive vice president of the Benton Foundation a private grantmaking institution that operates primarily in the field of communications, focusing on media policy and public service media. In 2006, she stepped down from her day-to-day executive and operational leadership to focus on programmatic activity in the area of community media. She has overseen the Sound Partners for Community Health program since its inception in 1996 and now serves as program liaison to the foundation's new community media regranting program, New Routes to Community Health. She holds a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Maryland (summa cum laude) and completed a Masters degree and her doctoral coursework in cognitive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Brenda Gonzalez, Deputy Director, New Routes to Community Health
In March 2007, Brenda Gonzalez was named Deputy Director for New Routes to Community health. New Routes is a new national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. New Routes is designed to improve immigrants' health, work life, and civic participation through the creation and support of local partnerships among immigrant organizations, media production centers, and established community institutions. She holds a B.A. in Social Psychology form the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Xochimilco, Mexico City and has done graduate work in Communicative Disorder and Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
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Kip Roderick
Kip Roderick works as Executive Assistant to Charles Benton and as Office Manager for the Benton Foundation office in Evanston. He joined the Benton Foundation in 2005 and has previous experience as an Executive Assistant with Public Media, Inc., Home Vision Entertainment, and Near North National Group. Kip earned a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign in 1999 and has also taught music at both high school and middle school levels.
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Jeremy Isett
Jeremy Isett leads the Benton Foundation's Internet initiatives.
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Board of Directors
Charles Benton, Chairman, CEO and Trustee
Since 1981 Charles Benton has served as Chairman of the Benton Foundation. He now also serves as Chief Executive Officer. Charles has also had a long career in the media education and entertainment businesses, including Public Media Inc. He has led the Foundation through its evolution from a grantmaking to an operating foundation devoted generally to the field of communications. In 1978, President Carter appointed Charles as chairman of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and as chairman of the first White House Conference on Library and Information Services, held in November 1979. In 1980, he was re-appointed for an additional 5-year-term, during which time he was elected chairman emeritus by unanimous vote of NCLIS commissioners.
From the fall of 1997 to December of 1998, Charles was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, also referred to as the "Gore Commission", whose final report was submitted to the Vice President on December 18, 1998. The Benton Foundation was designated by the co-chairs to serve as a home of the Advisory Committee legacy, acting as an institutional memory and tracking the debate on and progress of the Advisory Committee's report and recommendations.
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Elizabeth Daley
Elizabeth Daley was appointed dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts in May 1991. She is the inaugural holder of the Steven J. Ross/Time Warner Dean's Chair. Since becoming dean, Daley has strengthened the school's academic programs, infrastructure and ties with the entertainment industry and media arts community. Under her leadership, the school has added two new divisions in animation & digital arts and interactive media, built the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, installed 13 endowed chairs and formed successful partnerships with a variety of entertainment and technology companies. Daley also serves on the boards of AVID Technologies, the Center for Governmental Studies, the Digital Coast Roundtable, Operation Smile Board of Governors, the Visual Effects Society Advisory Council, Fondazione Azzurra, The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts, the Warner Brothers Historical Foundation, and advisory boards at USC for KUSC Radio and the Institute of Creative Technologies. Daley earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and M.A. and B.A. degrees from Tulane University and Newcomb College.
Terry Goddard
Terry Goddard, currently Arizona Attorney General, was previously coordinator and senior community builder for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1983 he was elected mayor of Phoenix and served four terms. Under his leadership, Phoenix won All-America City honors and he speared passage of two significant bond issues totaling nearly $2 billion, including funding for major public cultural buildings in the city.
In 1989, Terry was elected president of the National League of Cities. He currently serves on the boards of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Arizona Theater Company, the Cosanti Foundation, the Arizona Bank Advisory Board and recently completed a four-year term on the board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. He teaches a graduate course at the Arizona State University College of Architecture on Urban Housing Policy and is a member of the Arizona Bar Association, formerly a lawyer in private practice.
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Henry Rivera, General Counsel
Henry Rivera joined Wiley Rein LLP as a partner in August 2006. He is an internationally recognized expert, author, speaker and conference leader in the communications field. A former FCC Commissioner (1981-1985) and President of the Federal Communications Bar Association (1995-1996), he represents a wide variety of clients before the FCC, Congress, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the White House. He was recently named in Guide to the US Leading Lawyers "Best of the Best" as one of the top 12 telecom experts in the US and to The Best Lawyers in America in communications law (2007). Rivera received his J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law where he served as editor of the law review The Natural Resources Journal.
He is a Vietnam War veteran and Bronze Star recipient. He is a 1973 graduate of the University of New Mexico Law School, where he was editor of the Natural Resources Journal, a law review published by the University. He also holds degrees in both economics and accounting.
Woodward Wickham
Woody passed away January 18, 2009, read more
Craig Benton
Craig Benton is a planner, educator, project manager and entrepreneur in the waste management and renewable energy industries. Craig started his career in the 1980s as a consultant assisting local government with solid waste, waste reduction and recycling planning and program implementation. In the early 1990s Craig's consulting activities shifted toward assisting compost facility operators with facility development, regulatory compliance, business development and product marketing. From 1996 to 2006, Craig worked as a solar system and then compost system supplier in both the U.S. and in Europe, starting two companies in Ireland and the U.K.
Based in Ireland, Craig is currently working as a consultant assisting local government and private sector clients develop waste reduction, recycling and composting initiatives, collection schemes and large scale processing facilities. He also provides professional training to local government staff, consultants and facility operators in Ireland, Britain and Portugal. Craig is currently serving on the board of Cré Composting Association of Ireland as its membership and public relations chair. He has also served on the boards of the U.S. Composting Council, Clean Washington Center, Washington Toxics Coalition, Washington Citizens for Recycling and the Washington State Recycling Association where he served as President. Craig was awarded a B.A in Sociology from Yale, a M.A. in Community Planning from Antioch West, and a M.S in Continuing and Vocational Education from the University of Wisconsin.
